WiFi storage for your smartphone on the go

For Christmas I had requested a new gadget for myself – the Ravpower RP-WD01 Wifi disk. As the resident gadget geek I figured I better review this device so that other people can benefit from the awesomeness of it!!!

What prompted me to want a WiFi disk in the first place?
I use my iPhone as my camera while I am travelling – it is always with me, usually in my hand, takes decent photos and videos, and is easy to use. The problem I ran into was running out of storage space and having to delete photos or videos so that the next day I had room again. I don’t like to carry a laptop unless I am working – so an iTunes backup wasn’t possible. My plan had been to just connect to the hotel WiFi and upload the files to Dropbox. Nice idea if the WiFi signal had been stronger than 0.00000002 kb/s on a good day!

When I got my new iPhone 5S I was impressed with the AirDrop functionality to share files, contacts, photos with other iPhone users around me. I wondered if there was an external drive that could do the same thing for files? A search of the web didn’t find me an AirDrop drive, but I did come across the Ravpower WiFi drive.

What is a Wifi drive?
This device creates its own WiFi network when you turn it on – then you connect your device to this network and open an app to move files between the device and the drive – or just open the drive files on your device.

So at the end of each day on my travel adventures I can simply turn on this drive, connect to the WiFi and drag all my photos and video from the phone to the drive!

And its really fast – I was able to move from my iPhone to the drive, on average 100 photos and/or movies in about 2 mins. Beat that crappy hotel WiFi – probably have taken me 2 mins just to log into the Dropbox site!

Its not just a drive though
No, this little beauty is a multipurpose gadget for under $50. The actual device doesn’t have any on-board storage – you use SD cards (or micro-SD cards with an SD adapter) or attach an external USB drive. This gives you flexibility in how you organize your storage – back up everything to a hard drive and store just music or photos on different SD cards.

NAS File Server
Up to 5 devices can connect to the WiFi and view/share photos, music and videos. You can even have 2 people watching different movies at the same time – great for travelling families!

WiFi Hotspot
Connect the drive to your local WiFi network and it can become a hotspot for other devices. Share files and access the internet at the same time.

Backup Battery Charger
The drive charges via a micro USB post – cable is included in the package. It is a 3000 mAh charger so you can keep your smartphone taking pictures for a wee bit longer.

Transfer files between devices and laptop
This one was not so much of a big deal to me – there are windows and Mac apps that can be used to access the drive via WiFi so that files can be copied over. My point of having the device was to make carrying a laptop not necessary – or I could copy my photos into iTunes.

I did use this to copy my entire iTunes music library onto an SD card so that I can access all my music on the road without having to stream via cellular service unless I want to.

Does this work with Android and Apple?
It certainly does – there is an iOS app to use with it and an Android version too.

What about a PC or Mac?
Yes again, instructions and software can be found on the Ravpower download page.

How much does it cost?
Currently the drive can be picked up on Amazon for $45 – Prime members will get free shipping with that too. The apps are free.